January 25, 1999

DAS	DESL
Code composed of many executables Cannot set any system flags or registers from DESL invocation line. Cannot pass a command+argument list in on DESL invocation line. Start-up delay time during copies of large files to current directory Executables occupy approximately 20MB of disk space More complex production/maintenance of code required : Sources + scripts + directions for system making distributed	Code composed of one executable Can define various DESL internal settings and all user registers at DESL invocation time. Can pass one or more command+argument lists in on DESL invocation line. No start-up delay time Executable occupies approximately 2.5MB of disk space No complicated production/maintenance of code required : Binary file distributed. DESL code is downloadable from the ViGYAN web site in demonstration or unrestricted use mode.
SIF data records can contain a maximum of 3500 elements	SIF data records can contain a maximum of 100,000 elements
Documentation last printed and distributed in April, 1993 User notes written in manual or otherwise saved are inflexibly tied to hardcopy documentation	All documentation is contained in remotely- and/or locally-hosted web pages. Many inter-document links have enhanced documentation usefulness. Downloadable to local computer for fast page access and to support secure installations. User notes can be incorporated into the local web documentation, always linked to the proper documentation topic.
Delta command is a dynamic macro which runs relatively slowly Reform command is a dynamic macro which runs relatively slowly Translate is only able to read/write SIF, ffsif files	Delta option is part of the merge command which runs much faster Reform is now a standard macro which runs much faster Translate is now able to read/write SIF, ffsif, tab-separated, comma-separated, blank-separated files Create and Endcreate commands added for on-the-fly ASCII file production
Unix versions available; PC version questionable Support has been frozen	PC version available Unix versions available ~ 6/1/00 Support is continuous in the future

Near Future ...

DAS	DESL
No significant changes anticipated	Memory-resident file capability for performance increases GUI front end for all commands Longer file names allowed

Longer Term ...

DAS	DESL
No significant changes anticipated	More robust command/ASCII I/O mechanism to be employed allowing complex procedural command structures Move toward a standard binary file format transferrable across different computer architectures Enhance the capabilities of the DESL equation function such that it can take the place of the previous DAS build function